My Gecko's are Acting Weird!

[CrustyJoey]

Hi guys!
First time poster on these forums. I hope to continue my activity here and get know everyone here well
So! For some background: I have two leopard geckos, one named Gannon who is about a year old, and one named Gremlin who is about a year and a half old going on two years. Gannon is my boy while Gremlin is my girl. Both are the cutest little guys (See my profile picture for Gremlin ).
Since I received them and till about a 1 month or so back, they have gotten their heat via an adjustable heating mat. Their tanks (both 20L's) were a bare bones setup: carpet, ceramic rock, humid hide with moss, and a couple various little hides. They always received their heat from the heating mats up until recently.
I joined a few discord servers wherein many gecko owners informed me that that overhead heating is a more natural and somewhat critical method of heating their tanks.
I at first didn't pay these suggestions much mind. My geckos were active, interested in their surroundings, and HUNGRY, so I really didn't see how what I was doing could be bad. I in fact based my setup off of a friend who owns many geckos, bearded dragons, and frogs.
After giving it some more thought, I decided to switch up their tanks to overhead heating mainly because I realized how nasty those carpets are and how much they can damage my poor little guys's claws and such.
After the switch their tanks are now setup as: Substrate based (a mixture of approved topper and play sand) floor, same ceramic rock for heat spot, same humid hide for cold spot, Gremlin has a halogen 75w bulb with adjustable dimmer and thermostat and a dhp bulb with dimmer for night time, Gannon has just a dhp 80w bulb with adjustable dimmer and thermostat because he is very sensitive towards bright lights.

My main worry here is that they aren't hungry post setup switch! Their activity level has gone down quite a lot too!
I don't know if its poor heating, the changing weather (I am in California and it has been getting colder with nights below 55 fahrenheit) so maybe they are sensing this and going into brumation mode, or something else???
Gremlin spends most of her time in her humid hide of all places! Where it must be below or around 50 at nights. I have even put her in her hot hide and she literally moves in under 10 minutes back to the humid hide.
Gannon has been going more into his hot hide these days, but he is still really reluctant towards investigating his tank and just hangs out there.
I'm not sure if this is a changing surroundings thing or weather thing or what but its got me freaked out.
I am also worried about his whole overhead heating thing because they don't bask! So, for you owners out there who have overhead heating experience, how are they supposed to get their 88-95 degrees if they are inside the hot rock and not on top where I am measuring it with a heatgun and thermostat from? The inside of their rocks certainly aren't 88-95 because the outside on top is where I am measuring from.
I'm just worried about this overhead heating thing. With the mats at least I knew it was 88-95 degrees always consistently and it was going directly to their bellies. With the overhead heating thing apparently there are studies proving that the dhp bulbs and halogen bulbs produce a certain type of radiation which helps their systems digest and function and retain heat better than direct heat from below? Or at least that's that these discord communities are saying.
I can always switch it back to heating mats, I just heard you shouldn't do that with substrate floors for some reason, but if need be I can do that.

Anyways, I'll wrap it up here! Sorry for such a long post. Just worried about my babies!
Any help you professionals/owners out there have would be greatly appreciated!

-Best,
CJ.

 

[acpart]

Welcome to GF. I know that Arcadia makes these deep heat bulbs that are supposed to penetrate into hides for nocturnal non-basking geckos (some leopard geckos do bask, but since they're nocturnal, most of them stay in their hides during the day). You could probably do some research at the Arcadia and I imagine if you send them a question they'll respond.
There are lots of reasons why your geckos have changed behavior: they could be getting into winter mode where they eat less (leopard geckos won't necessarily brumate, and I find it's not the change in heat that triggers them to reduce appetite in the winter, rather, the change in ambient light), they could be taking a long time to get used to the new environment, or possibly they could be less happy about it.
What works for me is to use ceramic tile as a substrate and under tank heaters as heat source. Some of my enclosures are stacked, so there's really no room for lights. I'm also not sure what people do at night when the lights go off.


Aliza

 

[CrustyJoey]

Welcome to GF. I know that Arcadia makes these deep heat bulbs that are supposed to penetrate into hides for nocturnal non-basking geckos (some leopard geckos do bask, but since they're nocturnal, most of them stay in their hides during the day). You could probably do some research at the Arcadia and I imagine if you send them a question they'll respond.
There are lots of reasons why your geckos have changed behavior: they could be getting into winter mode where they eat less (leopard geckos won't necessarily brumate, and I find it's not the change in heat that triggers them to reduce appetite in the winter, rather, the change in ambient light), they could be taking a long time to get used to the new environment, or possibly they could be less happy about it.
What works for me is to use ceramic tile as a substrate and under tank heaters as heat source. Some of my enclosures are stacked, so there's really no room for lights. I'm also not sure what people do at night when the lights go off.


Aliza

Hi Aliza,
Thank you for the response!
I do use Arcadia branded halogen and dhp (deep heat projectors). As you said, they supposedly go beyond the hides, as they produce radiation that, like the sun, penetrates deep into their skin and warms their bodies.
As to if any of this is actually true, I have no idea.
I am hoping its just them being weird or picky about their surroundings. But, for them to give up on food is whats freaking me out.
I'll keep on waiting and watching them to see if they start getting more courageous. As of now I am hoping its just the weather change and change in surroundings thats caused them to become more withdrawn. I also want to get some sort of night time recording device to see if they actually do travel and possibly bask while I sleep.
Also DHP are light free! That's how they (and as of now, I) keep the tanks warm.
Thank you for the help!
-CJ.

 

[acpart]

I will say that I have leopard geckos that go on hunger strikes for weeks or months with no ill effects. I had one for 12 years that sometimes fasted from November till May! Keep offering and try not to get too worried. They're very hardy.

Aliza